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Video Gripes, Part I

By Eric A. Taub January 27, 2009 11:06 amJanuary 27, 2009 11:06 am

I’m one of those odd people who likes to read manuals. Most people think that’s a bit strange. Still, writing about technology gives me a chance to read a lot of manuals — and even to have written a few of my own over the years.

I also get to play with a lot of video-related products. Which brings me to a few suggestions on how the consumer electronics industry could improve the perception of their companies and perhaps even increase sales. Let’s get started:

1. Make manuals readable. Really, how hard is that? First, hire people who speak conversational English well. Then, hire graphics designers who either work in America, or can at least create diagrams and pictures that look familiar to people in the market in which the products are being sold, not in the markets where the products have been created.

2. Explain things in a manual in a way that’s logical. Tell people why a feature is important, rather than just tell them how to change its setting. It’s not enough to explain how to switch to 24p mode, if no one knows what 24p mode is.

3. If you make components that are marketed as being ideal to work together, don’t have the same adjustments on both. If you can adjust black level on a manufacturer’s HDTV and on the same brand of Blu-ray player, which one are you supposed to adjust? If you can’t get rid of one, at least let the customer know which one they should use, and why.

4. Supply HDMI cables with a TV or disc player. The industry says HDMI is the ideal way to connect components. Then why do many companies continue to supply only RCA cables, the least-effective cable to use to connect components? Drop the RCA cables and spend a few cents more to throw in an HDMI.

5. If you provide “white glove” service when delivering large flat-panel TVs to a home, then have the delivery men wear white gloves. Otherwise, just call it “service.”

6. Stop calling various TV picture presets names like “game,” “vivid,” and “reference standard.” It’s as silly as Starbucks calling their coffee cup sizes “grande” and “vento.” Just use useful terms, like “day” and “night.”

7. Tell people the truth — that you’re likely to get a worse-looking image when watching a standard-definition image on an HDTV set than when you watch the same image on an old standard-definition picture tube TV.

8. Why do I still have to wait longer for a Blu-ray disc to load than I do for a standard-definition disc in a standard-definition player? Yes, I know load times have improved, but I want them to be the same.

9. Stop disallowing certain actions on DVDs while the trailers are playing. And every disc should state that there is a way to skip the movie trailers on a DVD and head straight to the menu. Some discs do, but some don’t.

10. Make DVD and Blu-ray cases easier to open. Why do I need a hacksaw to get a disc out? This tactic surely can’t reduce theft. If my intent was to steal the disc in the store, I would have brought along a razor blade to get the job done right anyway.

Want to add to this list? Comment away — I’ll put the best ones in a new post.

Get together with the rest of the industry and come up with one standard set of remote control codes for every kind of device. There is no excuse why I need to have three different remotes (one each for TV, STB and DVD player), even though I’m quite capable of programming these things.

While you’re at it, the power button should issue distinct “power on” and “power off” codes, so your customers don’t wind up endlessly toggling one device on and the other device off if one gets out of sync with the other.

How about every source telling the display what its aspect ratio is, and every display telling the source what its capabilities are, so your customer doesn’t have to mess around with menus to get it right?

Can we please stop inventing new flavors of interfaces and cables, at least until some of the old ones have had a chance to go away?

But at the same time, can we please allow a mode in HDMI to send/receive compressed audio and video, so wireless interconnect is practical (not a science project)?

What are the chances that calibration tools can be built into mid-priced TVs, with enough guidance to allow even technological semi-literates to get something close to studio quality?

Item #9 drives me ABSOLUTELY INSANE. I really, really don’t need to be patronized with finger-wagging “Don’t pirate movies!” messages, and no, I don’t care about the lame trailers which are only relevant for a month or two after buying the DVD anyway.

I should be able to skip straight to the menu whenever I want, always, on every disc, every time.

Ditto Poster #2 regarding item #9 — for both being held hostage to a trailer AND being treated like a criminal. Of all Mr. Taub’s gripes, this one is the most insulting.

When will we lose the FBI logo? When I get in my car, I don’t have to sit through a splash screen on the dash that makes me wait 20 seconds while it says “Don’t drink and drive,” so why should I tolerate it on my (bought and paid for movies)?

I can’t think of any other consumer product that has used technology to go backwards. In the old days when the kids wanted to watch a movie, we put in the VHS tape, pressed “Play” and watched.

Now we load the DVD, wait through interminable junk, then get to a menu, wait for some annoying cutesy animation/video and finally search for the Play button. And if we’re lucky, the aspect ratio is correct, otherwise we fiddle around with the TV or the DVD player until it’s right.

Compare that to watching something on the Internet and guess who’s going to win?

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